On May 22, the City Council approved a nearly $14 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2025-26 after a month of intense discussion and more than a week of public hearings.
The City had to close a $1 billion deficit and there were no easy answers. The Mayor’s proposed budget would have laid off more than 1,600 civilian employees, cutting essential services like processing crime scenes and evidence, paving streets, repairing street lights, and maintaining parks, buildings and vehicles.
As Vice Chair of the Council’s Budget & Finance Committee, I fought to preserve core services, restore jobs, find creative solutions that leveraged other funds, and enact efficiencies that saved money without eliminating core functions.
Even with the improvements the Committee was able to make, we took a horrible budget proposal, and we only were able to make it into one that is just very bad.
Like many of you who responded to my annual community budget survey, I believe public safety must remain our top priority. Next year’s budget provides more than $3.3 billion for LAPD and $1.3 billion for LAFD, more than 63% of the City’s unrestricted revenues.
LAFD received the largest percentage increase of any department, even though the Council eliminated the Mayor’s proposed new team of firefighters that were slated to provide street medicine on Skid Row and even though Battalion Chief’s Emergency Incident Commander (EIC) positions were removed. While adding the new firefighter positions and keeping the EICs would have been ideal, it’s important to know that other health care providers do street medicine at a fraction of the cost and that the EICs will not be fired and will continue to serve as firefighters and life savers.
Similarly, in order to avoid the drastic elimination of the civilian police employees (fingerprint experts, crime scene photographers, administrators, etc) that were defunded in the Mayor’s proposed budget, the number of assumed new recruits was reduced by 220 to create savings. However, there is the opportunity to add more recruitment classes during the year should the City’s financial situation allow for it. We have too few sworn officers, but without civilians doing support work, fewer officers would actually be in the field (they would be behind a desk backfilling the civilian job at a much higher cost) and the ones that were in the field would be much less effective.
My colleagues and I were able to restore more than 1,000 civilian positions in public safety, Transportation, Street Services, Street Lighting, Planning, Housing, Animal Services and other departments that the budget survey also identified as top priorities for Third District residents. I am hopeful that, through continued discussions with the City’s labor partners, layoffs may be unnecessary. Again, the goal is not just maintaining jobs, it’s providing services that all Angelenos need and deserve.
Facing the reality of the City’s budget challenges, we are focused on efforts to ensure that your tax dollars are spent well. To that end, the FY25-26 Budget includes measures to improve oversight of homelessness spending; improve delivery of services to families, youth and seniors; and better coordinate programs that provide alternatives to LAPD in responding to non-violent service calls.
As always, if you have any questions for me or my staff, or would like to get in touch, please do not hesitate to write to us at c03.foryou@lacity.org or call my office at 818-774-4330.
